Dave
Brian does a great job of describing AMS ads and is able to err away from the usual dry approach that a lot of these books suffer from.
He's also a great help with talking about these things and figuring it out with his community. The only issue is that, of course, AMS ads changed a lot this year, sadly. Not his fault.
I do indeed hate math.
I'm not good at it. In fact, Algebra II was my biggest (and only) hurdle in high school. So running ads wasn't exactly something I was excited about, considering you've gotta keep on top of data, do analysis, A-B testing, the works.
Chris is able to easily explain ways to handle ads, analyze them and make it all work without getting too much into data analsys.
Chris Fox is one of the few voices in the independent publishing world that stands above the rest.
I had released my first book in my series a few years ago. Stuff happened and I didn't continue until now, although there was that nagging doubts about the shortcomings of said book.
This book was fantastic in helping me assess the problems, learn to live with certain things and take the right steps to make sure that I'm positioning myself better in this crowded market.
An interesting look in the Twin Peaks mythos, filling in some of the blanks left by “The Return” series.
While I appreciate those blanks being filled in, it does leave me wondering if they were left out intentionally or because of production restrictions.
The writing is okay, serviceable, not really inspired, which was a bummer. It was a fairly easy read that felt like a must-read for any Twin Peaks fan.
I gotta say, I have a soft spot for this character and this series.
I grew up reading a lot of science fiction and the Star Wars Expanded Universe was an integral part to that. Yeah, they weren't big, lofty and difficult tomes, but they were fun. Those books did more to flesh out and make the Star Wars universe feel real than any of the movies or official books ever have.
So getting to dip back into Thrawn? Awesome, just awesome. Zahn is a master of pacing these books, building compelling characters and making sure that you, the reader, enjoy yourself.
Parts of this book feel unique and interesting, while others are a slog and sort of a mess. For a 200 page book that is sort of weird.
The middle section dragged like no one's business, which just solidifies that while the premise for the book is interesting, it doesn't exactly have enough legs to stand as a novel.
Lloyd feels like a caricature of a crazy person, with nothing but his insanity on display ever. I found myself questioning why anyone would believe anything he said, no matter the grief they were experiencing.
There were also some timeline issues where things felt like they happened more spaced out than they really did.
This was perhaps as mediocre as it could be. The pacing was kinda dreadful, most of the plot and characters were sorta forgettable or I could only envision them thanks to the game.
I understand that writers have restrictions on them when working on tie-in novels and not to expect much, but yikes.
Closer to a 2 1/2 than 3.
The Dagger and Coin series is probably one of the more memorable fantasy series to be released in recent memory. While there were times in the first book where I felt like it was a bit too similar to previous, well-known series, I'm glad that I stuck with it.
Abraham's writing is clean, accessible and smart, which continues forward into The Spider's War. After getting to watch all of the characters grow and deal with the world around them, this was their last act. While there were a few moments midway through the book where I found myself not particularly interested in some of the brief interludes, it wasn't a big deal.
Things came together well, were interesting and each character had their own challenges to overcome along the way.
What really stuck with me was the ending for Geder. Geder was a complicated character in many ways. Geder had a horrible temper and had done some truly terrible things, but he was still carrying out most of his worst acts while under the control of the spiders. That being said, he was so easily manipulable because of these flaws. When he died it was clear that he felt that he was doing the heroic thing, that he wanted to be remembered as a hero instead of a fool and a villain, but the reality was that he was avoiding having to face his own actions and Cithrin. Deep down inside he had to know that Cithrin would reject him again, or he was at least afraid of it. Instead he got to die believing that he was a hero who was going to kiss the girl and have a happy ending before his heroic (and completely unnecessary) sacrifice. He also didn't have to face all of the people that he had wronged or have to help out in any of the hard work to repair the world that he had so horribly ruined. So his final sacrifice was his final act of cowardice and instead of everyone mourning him as a hero like he wanted, they simply shrugged it off. That was really tremendous, because Geder was such a pivotal character that we knew was conflicted and that deep down inside he wanted to be good, but he didn't get a heroic ending, he didn't get redeemed, he died as he lived instead.
A great ending to a great series.
In a way I'm conflicted about this book.
PKD is one of my all-time favorites and I've always enjoyed his work, but I feel like there is a wide range of PKD books that can at times feel very different. But at their core, most PKD books share the same basic truths; the first portion of the book is where he establishes an interesting world, characters and sets rules. The third and final portion is where all of those rules are broken, sometimes incrementally until they've been shattered.
Sure, that doesn't account for 100% of his books, but for a large portion of them it works. For Ubik it is dead on. The problem with Ubik is that the entire second act is just kind of there. It makes sense that it is like that because there is a mystery unraveling in Ubik and the characters need to exist within the confined set of rules that have been established for this world. The problem is that the stuff that happens in there isn't that interesting.
There are definitely moments that are captivating, but by-and-large I found myself putting this book down a lot, which considering it being a rather quick read, is kind of a bummer. The beginning established such an interesting world and characters, as PKD is prone to doing, but then watching some of them lament around it wasn't nearly as fun as it seemed it would be.
That being said, the four stars is because that beginning was just so strong and the last third was enough to wash the dull middle section away almost completely. Dick likes to play with perception and concepts of isolation, alienation and existence in general. Ubik is no different in this regard and wraps itself up in the exact fashion that you'd want from Philip K. Dick.